Tag Archives: xkcd

“Now what?” This group of people found themselves at the same semi-random location in the middle of the British countryside one afternoon. Maybe they went to a pub! (Creative commons photo from the Flickr account of Yang “yangman” Zhao)

Imagine it: You want to meet new people and see new places. Whereas before, you’d maybe look up something to do in your local travel guide, or read the newspaper, or visit a travel agency… now things are totally different.

Now, for all intents and purposes, you throw a dart at a map and go to that place. (We want REAL adventure!)

What’s insane is that, at this exact random location, other people are going to be there. And, because you share the same sense of adventure—and in this case, the same nerdiness—you’ve just found yourself a new best bud or two, or a new significant other.

Screw bars. This rocks.

It’s called geohashing, and it’s the wave of the future, my friends. The Internet has become our extended reality, and in this instance, we’re simply reversing the roles: we’re using computers as our “home base” and extending our entertainment and socialization into the real world from it. This was inevitable; now it’s here.

Long live the nerd! Computer engineers played by actors fawn over Ajay Bhatt, co-inventor of USB, in this hilarious commercial for Intel.

T-minus 18 days until school starts again. Man, I need a job. Otherwise I spend all day, as I have the past few, reading. Thoreau usually tops my list, but this time it’s been shorter bursts of stuff like Orion magazine (cover to cover, of course).

What’s that, you say? Certainly Orion hasn’t taken up the 30 hours of free time I’ve had in the past five days? You’re right. I have a new obsession. (Journalists get paid to develop short-term obsessions and then tell everyone else about how cool this thing is. I love my career path.)